Admiral eggs

I’m after some red or yellow admiral eggs for our school’s butterfly garden. We recently planted some urtica ferox and urtica incisa and have built a caterpillar castle around them. We have a large garden with a large variety of hebes, native hibiscus, salvia, metrosiderous etc.

Hi Carol
Thanks for the update.
It is always a challenge with these things. I have released 24 admirals over the last 2 weeks & was looking forward to seeing them on plants/ flowers in my garden. No such luck! I have no idea where they have gone & no sign of eggs on plants that are outdoors!

Very good idea to get rid of the ants. Not sure what else would have taken out those cats.

Have a good holiday & get in touch next year when you are back at school. Hopefully I will have some eggs or cats to send.

One yellow admiral butterfly successfully hatched and released today, thanks Wendy. I’m kicking myself I didn’t take a photo before I opened the top of the caterpillar castle. I couldn’t see it at first but knew it had hatched. It was resting one of the posts but I soon as I lifted the cover it took off at a great rate of knots up into the trees. A shame that the kids finished on Friday so didn’t see it but they’ve produced some great information reports about the red and yellow admirals. One boy’s mum found a yellow in their backyard just a few weeks before you sent us the cats. She took a photo of it because she didn’t know what it was, and her son and I identified it.

I’m not sure why the other cats didn’t survive to chrysalis. We do have a lot of ants in that garden and a few days after we put the cats inside the castle, the leaves of the nettles were crawling with ants. I put ant killer down but it may have been too late.

Thanks again, Wendy. Your generous gift gave us a wonderful learning opportunity and to know we can successfully rare yellow admirals.

Hi Carol. Pleased to hear they have arrived safely. I don’t remember putting a tiny one in! It must have been on the plant or one of the branches. The caterpillars camouflage themselves quite well. There was one tucked into an old dead leaf yesterday. Don’t worry if you can’t find them all straight away. Just put the plant & the oasis in amongst your nettle plants so they can find fresh food. Once the nettles are out of the box just double check the packaging. Look forward to seeing some pics on your blog.
Wendy

Hi Wendy, the admirals have arrived. The students are thrilled. We’ve had a close look at one. They’re very cute. Three bigger ones accounted for so far and one very tiny one (about 5mm). I’ll have a closer look for the others at lunch. For now they’re safer in the box. Here’s the link to our blog which I’ll upload a couple of photos of the kids to with the caterpillars in a sec. Hurupaki School Wetland and Butterfly Enviro team

Thanks so much Wendy. I’m so thankful for the Monarch Butterfly trust bringing us together.

That’s great Wendy. Fingers crossed they arrive safely and not to shaken up. I’ll be keeping a close eye out so we can get them out on the plants straight away. We have the nettle fenced off with a shadecloth covering. It will be stitched up very tightly including the roof, once they’re in. The kids are so excited.
Will let you know as soon as they arrive.

Hi Caryl
I got the stickers at one of the $2 shops here in Cambridge! The last place I would have thought of looking, just saw them by chance when I went in to get some tape to secure the carton. I had already asked at the Post Shop and they didn’t have them.

I have sent 6 cats, Carol. Hopefully at least 2 will be females. They are all about 3+ cm long, so easy to see, and very easy for predators to see!
I used New Zealand Couriers in the end as their depot was much closer. They will be on their way now and should be delivered to your school tomorrow morning. I have put the phone number you gave me on the box. The delivery no. is 37627021.
Fingers crossed it all goes to plan!

Thanks Wendy. Sending overnight is great – I would send them no other way. On Monday I sent 25 small cats and one egg to the lower South Island and they all survived. I have sent approx 600 eggs to various locations in the south. Even though their spring has been better than Wellington’s for the past 2 years monarchs don’t visit until December. I appreciate you writing. Where did you buy the fragile stickers? I find them hard to find here. Caryl

Hi Caryl
They were just very helpful about how long it would take to get the cats to Whangarei, & assured me if I labelled the carton fragile & this way up etc the cats would be ok. But all care, no responsibility, of course! The carton has those fragile stickers everywhere & I have also written live plants & live caterpillars on it.
Wendy

Hi Carol
I will take the cats into Courier Post depot tomorrow arvo & they have told me they will be delivered to you the following morning, around 9 AM if all goes to plan.
I will let you know tomorrow exactly how many I send, some will be on a smallish plant, some on nettle stalks in oasis. Just be really careful when you lift the plant & oasis out, & try & find/count the cats. Some may have fallen off during the journey & might be in the packaging. If you are moving the cats & you touch them, they curl into a ball & just freeze/play dead for up to 5 mins. So just leave them at the base of a plant. I use small pieces of card to scoop them up & move them if this happens. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan!
Wendy

Thank you so much Wendy. The students will be so excited. They’ve not seen a yellow or red admiral before. It will be very exciting to watch the cats grow over the next few weeks. The address is C Tyson, c/o Hurupaki School, 20 Dip Rd, Whangarei 0112. My email is ctyson@hurupaki.school.nz. If you email your bank details I’d be happy to reimburse your costs.

I’m sure we’ll have more than a few interested visitors to our butterfly habitat while they are growing.

Hi Wendy, Can you share what NZ Post advised re sending caterpillars please? I send monarch cats (young ones) and eggs quite often with their overnight courier but have never asked for advice. Thanks for your post. The class will be thrilled. Caryl (Wellington)

Hi Carol
I will make enquiries tomorrow with Courier Post & hopefully will get some advice here also about safely sending some young cats.
I really admire what you are trying to do & hopefully can send you 5 or 6 young cats, which will at least get you started. Happy to send eggs later, but at least if I can get some cats to you the children will be able to observe them before the long summer holidays. Ex school teacher here!!!

Hi Carol. If I get a lot of eggs/cats I would be happy to send some up via courier. At this stage I’m still waiting for the first lot of eggs to hatch, they could be infertile. I am not seeing any butterflies around at the mo & haven’t had any more eggs laid on outside plants.
Once you have seen the eggs & know what to look for, it’s usually easy to find them. They are usually laid on the tip of a ‘hair’ on the nettle leaf. So they are slightly above the leaf. Usually there are two eggs. When the sun is shining on them they reflect the light, so they are like tiny diamonds!

It may be possible for someone to send you some admiral caterpillars. A couple of years back I received some by overnight courier and they were perfectly ok. Even when I manage to see an admiral laying eggs, I can’t see the eggs! I’ve got a dozen admiral pupa in the butterfly castle at the moment, but no fresh tents on the nettles as yet. I’ll keep you in mind if I get an influx.

Thanks to everyone who posted. We are in Whangarei and unfortunately I’ve never seen red or yellow admiral butterflies in our area. That’s not to say that they aren’t around, but to get a population established in the school, I know we will have to transplant eggs from somewhere else. If those of you who have eggs, (or are likely to get eggs over the next couple of months could keep us in mind we would really appreciate it.

I raised hundreds of yellow admerals last year but to my dissapointment no red admerials.
This year I was lucky enough to witness a red admeral laying on my plants, I also have had several yellow admerals laying. I now have tiny caterpillers all over my plants. I live in Gore down south in Southland. It’s so nice to see butterflys again after a cold winter.

I released over 40 yellow admirals late winter/early spring & have been all set to go with lots of nettles in pots for the last month or so, but just wasn’t getting any eggs. I have finally had some eggs laid on an Urtica Australis plant that has been wintering under some shrubs. I am just not seeing any admirals around at present. But you need to have lots of seedlings growing, because the annual nettle has a short life span.
Good luck with your project & let us know how you get on.
Wendy